Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Program: Theses

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https://hdl.handle.net/1974/6146

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Mom-Bots and Cyborg Babies: Artificial Life and Artificial Reproduction in Contemporary Science Fiction Narratives
(2024-09-05) Veysey, Emily; Cultural Studies; Bertrand, Karine
This thesis addresses assisted reproductive technologies and their representation in contemporary science fiction narratives, positioning them as fundamentally interconnected in their co-constitution and situated within the current political debates surrounding reproductive rights. It is guided by the following research questions: How are negative representations of artificial life forms in science fiction film related to technophobic, heteronormative ideology associated with assisted reproductive technologies? What common threads can be identified between these representations and technologies and the real-world bodies and systems they are entangled with? Drawing on the cultural studies of science and technology, feminist media studies, gender studies, labour studies, and using a theoretical framework of the “cyborg” as a posthuman ontology, this thesis proceeds through several stages of interrogation, beginning with an exploration of assisted reproductive technologies and the complex social and ideological aspects at play in their development and use, connecting this to mass media representation through critical analyses of the 2017 films Alien: Covenant and Blade Runner 2049. Arguing these as an entanglement of interconnected factors shaping our reproductive landscape, this thesis works to make visible the role of these technologies in our society and how we speculate about their role in our futures through science fiction film.
Abolition Dramaturgies
(2024-08-29) Horner, Mariah Ashley; Cultural Studies; Stephenson, Jenn
Abolition dramaturgies combine abolitionist scholarship with theatre theory to consider theatre a world building arena that dreams, rehearses, and manifests a world that doesn’t rely on carcerality to address harm. This dissertation considers and articulates specific practices within the theatrical arena that can rehearse anti-carceral values and manifest an abolitionist present and future. Examining both abolition dramaturgies and carceral theatrics through scholarship and performance, this study is interdisciplinary. The writing includes theoretical dialogue between theatre and abolition studies, performance analysis of theatre and filmed adaptations of theatre, and reflective autobiographical writing about the context in which I completed this doctorate. The thesis engages with theatre scholars and artists like d’bi young anitafrika, Yvette Nolan, Jill Dolan, Augusto Boal, Bertolt Brecht, and Antonin Artaud to consider liberation a primary function and practice of the theatre. Engaging with abolitionist thinkers like Saidiya Hartman, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Mariame Kaba, and Robyn Maynard and scholars working between theatre and abolition like Nicholas Fesette, this dissertation considers abolitionist practices and values that are inherently theatrical, practices like do-overs, choral solidarity, and the manipulation of capitalist clock-time. Accompanying the paired theoretical frameworks of abolition and dramaturgy, this dissertation analyzes nine works of theatre (or filmed adaptations of theatre) to examine ways abolitionist practices are manifested in live performance. The dissertation ends with a piece of creative writing that reflects upon the ways that abolition dramaturgies manifested in my quotidian life as I wrote.
Cyber-Social Interaction: Ghanaian Popular Dance in the "Shifting Virtual Cypher" - Instagram
(2024-07-17) Mattson, Benedictus; Cultural Studies; Walker, Margaret
Azonto dance, an expressive popular dance originating in Accra-Ghana in the early 2000s has achieved global recognition particularly due to its constant presence on social media. Due to Ghanaian youths’ neglect and marginalization and the constant control of mainstream media by the governmental and social elites, social media, and in particular, Instagram, has become an alternative platform for young people to explore to promote their crafts. I argue that this shift from performing Azonto dance in pubs, street corners, and other in-person cypher grounds to disseminating through virtual spaces has engendered profound choreographic transformations to the dance as well as complicated the economic conditions of deprived young Azonto dancers. This interdisciplinary research thus is a unique attempt to investigate these transformations that have occurred between 2017 to 2023, a phenomenon I explore through the productive conversations between critical globalization theory, mediatization and practice theory. My research methodology is a combination of digital ethnography and in-person participation, observations, and interviews, whilst my decade long experience in performing and teaching Azonto dance has informed my analysis of data. One of the major findings of my dissertation is how the activities of Azonto dancers on Instagram have facilitated the transformation of the Azonto dance cypher. I hence theorize the “Shifting Virtual Cypher” as way of conceptualizing how the Azonto dance cypher has changed over time. I conclude that although Azonto has gained worldwide recognition and may have enhanced youths’ economic conditions, it is crucial to be aware of the larger impact of the adverse effects of this extreme popularity.
The Tattoo Renaissance: Popular Narratives and Neglected Stories of Body Ink’s History in American Culture
(2024-05-23) Fabiani, Christina; Cultural Studies; Brison, Jeff; Haidarali, Laila
This dissertation examines the American tattoo renaissance from the late 1960s through the 1980s, an era in which a subcultural movement worked to elevate body ink from its stigmatized status in American culture to an appreciated and mainstream position as a fine art. I explore this period as a cultural tipping point in body ink’s American history that was (and is) presented as a white liberal movement that redefined the practice to suit the middle-class palate. Tattoos became commodified as popular fashion items that symbolized the wearer’s individuality, bodily autonomy, and open-mindedness. Upon deeper investigation, however, I show that this ‘official’ and dominative narrative exists and persists through the erasure of marginalized individuals and social groups from the practice’s cultural production and hegemonic memory. I interpret an extensive source base through an intersectional lens grounded in analytical frameworks of subculture theory, cultural economies, and critical race, and I uncover the complex subcultural boundaries that governed the tattoo trade and in fact reinforced dominant American ideals of patriarchal heteronormativity, racial superiority, and white respectability. Firstly, I explore how and why the renaissance-era tattoo community’s aesthetic and behavioural standards were deliberately produced and policed to legitimize the trade in the public eye. My research reveals that the mechanisms involved in the popularization of body ink in America mirrored the sociopolitical climate at the time. Secondly, my research foregrounds, and thus reverses the silences around, individuals and social groups largely omitted from the trade’s cultural production and popular history. I showcase how these people and communities embraced, rejected, and/or transformed (often simultaneously) the subcultural standards that directed the mainstream body ink industry in ways that disrupt the hegemonic memory of this critical period in the trade’s history. My research not only complicates popular narratives of body ink advocates and their legitimizing efforts during the trade’s renaissance period but also highlights the lived realities of individuals and social groups who existed on the margins of mainstream tattoo culture, positions that mirrored their status within American society at large.
The fictions of poverty: Food insecurity and children’s literature
(2024-05-14) Day, Dian; Cultural Studies; Power, Elaine
In this dissertation I examine the ways in which ideas about poverty and poverty-related food insecurity circulate within children's middle grade fiction. Through a variety of approaches, I examine how this literature, as a literature of and for the powerless, creates and supports the socioeconomic and political status quo. I begin by reviewing the existing secondary literature on poverty in children's books before turning to a study of the way food and food insecurity more specifically make an appearance in middle school literature. I explore the ways three common tropes operate with particular strength within stories about food insecurity: that of gender (especially mothering); the association of poverty with ignorance; and the taken-for-granted superiority of middle-class values and knowledge. Overall, these books’ singular focus on individual solutions to overcoming food insecurity renders invisible both the pervasiveness of systemic barriers and the possibilities of collective action to counter inequities. Looking to move beyond a mere recognition and critique of the issues present in extant texts I create a fiction of my own, in an arts-based research project, that strives to address the most taken-for-granted but nonetheless problematic of these stereotypes; the graphic novel script for Stuffing the Bus tells the story of two young protagonists, one of whom is food insecure, who explore the difficult issue of food insecurity without easy answers or individualistic solutions—but I also remain focused, ultimately, on telling a good story. In a subsequent section, I explore the writing process and my writerly decisions in depth as I worked to create a story that provides a critical counterpoint to entrenched economic inequities. I conclude that individually- and charity-focused solutions to food insecurity only serve to support their perpetuation, and that real change towards fewer hungry and food insecure children (and adults) will come only through community-supported efforts toward systemic change. I hope that creating new fictions will contribute to that work.

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